Financial Celebrity Hot Takes
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #245
Financial Celebrity Hot Takes
We are back with another great episode of Our 2 Cents. The Lewits are sharing timely financial tips for February and weighing in on some headline-making celebrity money advice. Tune in to hear our take. You won’t want to miss it!
- Gabriel’s Quick Hits:
- What happens now after the Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs?
- What’s the 2026 market and economic forecast?
- February Financial Focus:
- Take advantage of February to review your investments and sharpen your tax readiness. Here’s our step-by-step guide.
- Controversial Financial Advice?:
- What are the financial celebrities saying? Find out if the Steve and Gabriel give it a thumbs up or down.
Request Your Free Consultation Today
847.499.3330
Podcast Transcript
Announcer: You are listening to Our 2 Cents, with the team from SGL Financial, Building Wealth for Life. Steve Lewit is the President of SGL Financial, and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest in financial news, trends, strategies, and more.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to Our 2 Cents. This is Gabriel Lewit and Steve Lewit here on take two of our intro today. I botched it the first time.
Steve Lewit: You did. Yes. Yes, you did.
Gabriel Lewit: Fortunately, we’re not live, live.
Steve Lewit: It’s the first time in … How many episodes do we have?
Gabriel Lewit: 244.
Steve Lewit: Folks, this is the first time in 244 episodes that my son flubbed the intro.
Gabriel Lewit: I think it’s actually more than once. I think it’s more than once.
Steve Lewit: Well, I don’t remember the other times.
Gabriel Lewit: Hopefully I don’t flub in the middle of a show. We’ve had that happen once, and then we had to redo it. That was no fun.
Steve Lewit: Well, we’ve both done that, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: But yeah, we hope you’re doing great. Great to have you here on the show with us here today. We’re going to go through a couple of quick updates here on the world of economics and tariffs. There’s been some changes on that front.
Steve Lewit: There sure have.
Gabriel Lewit: So, we’re going to just touch on that for just a minute, and we’ll just give kind of a brief, tiny, tiny synopsis of the stock market and economic outlook event we did the other week.
Steve Lewit: Absolutely.
Gabriel Lewit: Just in case you didn’t tune into that, we want to give you just a very small taste of that here. And then we’re going to continue on our topic, which we teed up last time, which is about the financial planning focus for the month of February. And so we’re going to spend some time there. And if we have time, we’re going to do some hot takes with basically advice from semi or sort of famous people, and whether or not we like that advice or don’t like the advice. And that should round out our show here for today.
Steve Lewit: And nothing about the Americans winning hockey in the Olympics?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, you just said something. What would you like to say?
Steve Lewit: Americans won hockey in the Olympics. It was a lot of fun to watch.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, they’re pretty good.
Steve Lewit: That’s it. That’s all I have to say.
Gabriel Lewit: Was that it?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, that’s it. Olympics is over.
Gabriel Lewit: It is. I went to turn it on the other day just to see if it was there, and it was like-
Steve Lewit: Yeah, no, yeah, it’s not.
Gabriel Lewit: … closing ceremony was recorded.
Steve Lewit: It was fun
Gabriel Lewit: And it was all gone.
Steve Lewit: I’m a curling expert now.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, four more years from now, you can watch it all over again.
Steve Lewit: Yes, yes, yes.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, so let’s go ahead and jump on in.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, let’s jump.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: What do you got?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, economic update. We’ve got tariffs were ruled unconstitutional, the way they had been implemented currently by the president, 6-3.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, it’s a big impact on the tariff trade and on the president’s economic policy.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, to follow that up, Trump of course then chose a different path, which was to announce some form of a new 15% global tariff, using a different law that he felt allows him to do that.
Steve Lewit: A 60-day law, I believe.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep. So yeah, all said and done, this tariff battle is just being battled out here, and we’re all watching to see what happens. I think other countries, I mean, here’s what’s interesting about this, I think, from an economic perspective is, it’s so uncertain that if the goal of the tariffs was to get other countries or our country to build more onshore and create factories, I mean, there’s so much uncertainty with it. Who’s going to endeavor to build a multi-multi-billion dollar factory or something like that when they just don’t know what’s going to happen here? It’s just creating a lot of uncertainty.
Steve Lewit: Exactly. And building factories takes time. It’s not like, “Okay, we’re going to put tariffs off and we’re not going to import from China, but we’re going to build the factories here to make up for the deficit in manufacturing.” But that could take five years.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I’m sure there were companies, right? Or countries. Everybody’s waiting to see what the Supreme Court would rule. In fact, I think the European Union recently came out and said, “We just saw that your Supreme Court ruled these unconstitutional, and what about the trade deal we had had?”
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: So, this is creating a lot of, again, just confusion, uncertainty-
Steve Lewit: To say nothing about people who would like a refund for the illegal tariffs.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, there are now lawsuits being filed for refunds.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: So, this is just getting messy, unfortunately.
Steve Lewit: And the interesting thing always is that the market is actually holding up pretty good about it.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think the market, to your point there, has already assumed this is going to stay chaotic.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: So maybe it’s written it off, right?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I think the bigger question for the market is if the US invades Iran, how will the market react to that?
Gabriel Lewit: Which is-
Steve Lewit: That I’m not really sure about.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So we had our market and economic outlook event the other week. We’re not going to do a huge recap of this. We have a recording, if you’d like to watch that, please email us info@sglfinancial.com, we can get you a copy of that recording. But we spent an entire hour talking about the market last year, the market this year ahead, economies, jobs, inflation, all these AI bubbles. We talked about a lot of key topics, key themes-
Steve Lewit: Gold and crypto.
Gabriel Lewit: … key themes for this year to be on the radar. Tariffs was one of those. So we’re giving you just a little bit of an update on that front. But outside of this, right, what’s interesting is the economy right now is generally on pretty solid footing, was our takeaway. There are definitely some things to watch out for. Geopolitical events are always one of those. So that’s the Iran question. Warships are moving into the area. I think I just read more planes have been moved to that region than maybe ever before. And so, there’s definitely some concern about will this turn into a bigger protracted war, right? Or what will happen there.
Steve Lewit: That is the concern, is do you open that door, and all of a sudden it becomes a much bigger episode than planned? It escalates.
Gabriel Lewit: So again, today’s goal isn’t to get into all of those nitty-gritties, but giving you couple updates there on the tariff front. We will continue to monitor and give you some additional news when it comes available, in case we happen to be your news source. We’re happy to do so.
Steve Lewit: Once a week.
Gabriel Lewit: And other than that, though, if you have questions on the economy, email us, call us about the market, how to set up your plan. Those were all things we covered on the market outlook event. We’d love to talk through those with you personally, if we can be of assistance there.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, absolutely. We talked about the strength of the dollar also, Gabriel, which I think is very important, because a lot of people are feeling, is the dollar going to be worth anything? Is it going to be the currency of the world? And the answer to that folks is yes, it is. It has weakened a little bit, but not materially, and it is still the reserve currency for most countries.
So going forward, what we’re seeing is, as Gabriel said, a very … Inflation has kind of leveled out, even though it’s higher than it should be. We would like it to be … Prices in certain pockets are very, very high. And I think that’s one of the big political weaknesses that the president is facing, is that people are struggling to make ends meet. Even though inflation is not climbing, the prices did not go back to where they were in 2000.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Steve Lewit: So, a lot of good things happening folks, and yet the headlines can scare the daylights out of you.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Is that it?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I was trying to move on, and then you kept going on it. I’m just kicking you under the table a little bit.
Steve Lewit: Did you see how he just did that? Well, I felt-
Gabriel Lewit: So, then I’m trying not to add more elaborate commentary to it because we’re trying to move on.
Steve Lewit: You want to change the topic?
Gabriel Lewit: I am trying to move us in that direction.
Steve Lewit: Okay. Well, that’s all I have to say about the economy, folks. Hey Gabriel, why don’t we move on?
Gabriel Lewit: That’s a great idea, Steve.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Perfect. All right, well let’s talk about where we had teed this up last time, right? Our monthly focus for February is on investment and tax readiness, our financial planning focus for this month. And we had covered last time just to run through the list, what we’re going to focus on, reviewing and rebalancing your portfolio, checking your diversification, gathering your tax documents, which last time we said, and I’ll say again this time, there’s not much to talk about on that one, just make sure you do it.
Steve Lewit: Gather away.
Gabriel Lewit: And then number four was evaluating your financial habits. So we’re going to talk a about these three, other than gathering your tax documents here today. Mr. Steve, because I felt bad about just what we transpired here just a moment ago, what would you like to talk about first on this list of very topics?
Steve Lewit: Thanks for giving me the lead on your topics that I can choose one of your topics-
Gabriel Lewit: I’m here to please. L.
Steve Lewit: Well, let’s start from the top. Rebalancing your portfolio.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Okay. So rebalancing your portfolio. Is this important, Mr. Steve?
Steve Lewit: Absolutely,
Gabriel Lewit: It is. And we talked last time, and I’ll just give a quick lead in again. Rebalancing is this concept. Let’s say you have a $100,000 portfolio, and it’s a 50/50 model, 50% stocks, 50% bonds. And let’s say the stocks go up 10% in a year, you would now have 55,000 in stocks. Hopefully everyone’s tracking with me here. And if your bonds were flat for the year, they would still be at $50,000 a year later. So you have $105,000 and you have what percentage portfolio model, Steve?
Steve Lewit: 55/45. I wasn’t thinking of … Where are we? You have too many equities.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I wasn’t-
Steve Lewit: I was thinking-
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, you have 55,000 out of 105,000. Okay?
Steve Lewit: Folks, this is, higher mathematics is way beyond Gabriel and I.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, hold on a second.
Steve Lewit: Come on. Get that phone working.
Gabriel Lewit: 105,000 equals a 52.3. You have a … I’ll round up, a 53/47.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: So, your stocks went up.
Steve Lewit: You got more stocks in comparison to bonds than you really wanted to have.
Gabriel Lewit: Now let’s say the next year that happened again.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. So I think I mentioned this last time, that’s called portfolio drift.
Gabriel Lewit: You did, yes.
Steve Lewit: Where you start with a 50/50 portfolio, 50% equities, 50% bonds, 10 years later you’re in a 70/30 portfolio-
Gabriel Lewit: If you didn’t do anything along the way.
Steve Lewit: … if you didn’t do anything along the way, because now all the equities went up and bonds remain flat, so-
Gabriel Lewit: Or don’t go up nearly as much.
Steve Lewit: Or don’t go up nearly as much. Now, the thing about rebalancing, Gabriel, that I love, is everybody talks about winning in the market, about selling high and buying low. And what is rebalancing? It’s exactly that, because you’re selling the higher portion of your assets to rebalance it with something lower, that didn’t perform equally as well.
Gabriel Lewit: And I’ll take a step back. That is correct. Very good point. But yeah, the act of rebalancing, just to take one step back, is selling off some of the stocks, in this case, in our example, that were doing better.
Steve Lewit: At higher prices.
Gabriel Lewit: And we had more of our target. We wanted 50/50, we had 53/47, so we’re going to sell off 3% of the stocks, and we’re going to buy more of the bonds to keep this portfolio in balance.
Steve Lewit: Exactly.
Gabriel Lewit: That is rebalancing, in a nutshell,
Steve Lewit: And that’s an opportune time also to do tax loss harvesting, if your portfolio allows it.
Gabriel Lewit: It could be, or depending on the type of the account, and all the performance metrics that go along with this, right? What’s up, what’s down? But conceptually, you’re right, if the stocks were doing pretty well and they overperformed against the bonds, you’re selling them generally at a high point-
Steve Lewit: At a high.
Gabriel Lewit: … because had stocks gone the other way, had they been down, you would be, let’s say it was 47% stocks and 53% bonds because stocks went down. You’d be doing the reverse. You’d be selling some of the bonds. They’ve done better than stocks, so you’re selling those while they’re higher, and you’re buying more of the stocks, which are lower, to get that back into portfolio balance. That is rebalancing in action. So the questions that come from this is oftentimes, “Well, how do you do it?”
Steve Lewit: And how often.
Gabriel Lewit: How often. What do you sell? And can people even really do this effectively on their own? Especially if you have a, let’s say you have 40 stocks in your portfolio and 20 individual bonds, this becomes challenging to do on your own.
Steve Lewit: Well, it’s not only 40 stocks, but it’s 40 stocks in different asset classes. You could have large cap, small cap, international, emerging markets, so you have to rebalance within those asset classes as well, not only just the individual stocks or against bonds.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, that’s actually a great point. That’s going to lead in a little bit into the second topic, which is actually a good segue, and we might circle back to rebalancing momentarily, but diversification, right? We said here, check your diversification. What you were just talking about, asset classes, is this concept of having, let’s say, more than just S&P 500. So if you had just a single S&P 500 fund, you are somewhat diversified in the sense that you have 500 stocks inside of that fund. However, what allocation do you have to US large-cap? 100% of your funds are allocated to if you just own an S&P 500 fund.
So diversification is this concept of not just buying more than one stock. That is part of diversification, but also the concept of having more than one asset class represented inside your portfolio.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, folks, and there are over 20 different asset classes, and then within the asset classes themselves, there are subclasses. And really, to do the job of rebalancing and diversification, you really have to go down two or three layers to get this right. And that is very difficult for an individual to do, Gabriel.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, to simplify a little bit, from 20, let’s say you had a US large-cap, right? That’s 10% of your portfolio. You had a US small-cap that could be 10%. You could have a US value, that would be 10%. You could have an international large, international small, international value. You could have growth, you could have REITs, you could have intermediate-term bonds, and you could have short-term bonds, Treasury bonds.
Steve Lewit: You could have emerging market.
Gabriel Lewit: And let’s say that that’s 10 or 11, I didn’t exactly count,
Steve Lewit: But now you got to add on the industrial classes inside, how much is finance, how much is industrials, how much is banking?
Gabriel Lewit: If I might respectfully talk to you about that, you know this already, but we tend to not focus too much on those subsectors.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: We focus more on the broad asset classes, international, US, large, small, value, growth. Most people tend to fall into that unless you get really technical. And for the purposes of our show here today, diversification, and checking your diversification is essentially reassessing, what do I have today? Do I even know? Do you guys out there know what you hold in your portfolio? I’ve had a lot of people come to me saying, “I’ve realized I’m a little light on internationals and it did well last year. I should probably have more of that, shouldn’t I, Gabe?” And I’m like, “Yuh-huh.” But that’s this in action, right? You are checking your diversification, what you have, and then you have to have a target for what you’re trying to be near. You see what I mean?
Steve Lewit: And it’s understanding, what you’re pointing to is understanding exactly what diversification really means. Diversification is more than holding 20 different stocks.
Gabriel Lewit: And so, the other big, very, very broad level of diversification is just, or asset allocation is just stocks and bonds, which is actually more to do with what your risk comfort level is. Do you want to be more conservative? You have more bonds or other bond alternatives. If you want to be more aggressive, you have stocks. And then of course, if you have a longer time horizon, you could afford to be more aggressive. If you have a shorter time horizon, you should perhaps be more conservative. All these factor into ultimately your diversification. And the other diversification is strategy diversification, where maybe you don’t just have stocks and bonds. Maybe you have buffered strategies in there. Maybe you have some safe growth vehicles as a bond alternative. These are all different parts of this that start to make this sound pretty complicated.
Steve Lewit: Well, you were trying to make it simple earlier, and then you just got more complicated, and then we could add onto that product diversification.
Gabriel Lewit: You could.
Steve Lewit: Which is exactly what you’re talking about now.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay. So what do you do with all that? Well, you either muddle through it on your own.
Steve Lewit: You try. Look, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you’re going to try, because look, I think that most folks out there are pretty smart, and you’re going to try and diversify as best you can. What we’re suggesting is that it might be a bigger task than initially you think it is.
Gabriel Lewit: I would agree with that. On the surface, it sounds really simple,
Steve Lewit: Yeah, just diversify.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, you just rebalance.
Steve Lewit: Just rebalance.
Gabriel Lewit: But as you get into weeds, which is maybe what we’ve unearthed for you here today, there can be a lot that goes into it underneath the surface. One of those iceberg pictures where you see the tiny little iceberg on the top, and then below, it’s this giant big thing, that’s kind of rebalancing and diversification in a nutshell.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s like you want to fix your own. You say, “Oh, I’m going to fix the plumbing on the bathroom. That looks simple.”
Gabriel Lewit: Well, you stop the leak from leaking.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, stop the leak. And then you open the wall and it’s like, three weeks later it’s still leaking. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, to round out our list for February-
Steve Lewit: That was a very good analogy.
Gabriel Lewit: Just beautiful.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, it was.
Gabriel Lewit: The best. All right, let’s talk about evaluating your financial habits. A good time of the year to talk habit planning, right? It’s still sort of near the new start of the year, right? So you could say, is this a part of a new year resolution, or just a good habitual review of what you do? Now, what are some habits for finances? Well, saving for retirement, that’s one habit, right? Are you doing it? Are you saving as much as you thought you wanted to? Another habit would be what, Steve?
Steve Lewit: Spending.
Gabriel Lewit: Spending, yep.
Steve Lewit: Against retirement, undermining your retirement-
Gabriel Lewit: Your budget. Are you sticking-
Steve Lewit: … blowing through your budget. That would be a-
Gabriel Lewit: … to-
Steve Lewit: … bad habit.
Gabriel Lewit: … your budget. Other types of, let’s see, habits would be-
Steve Lewit: I’m very conservative. I’m very aggressive as usually your
Gabriel Lewit: Default, your default investment nature. Should you overcome that, or do you stick to that as a default just because?
Steve Lewit: Do you react to the headlines? Are you very reactionary person, you see a headline, then you want to do something about it? These are the kinds of habits that often we don’t see, Gabriel. They just kind of operate in the background, but they drive our investment decisions
Gabriel Lewit: Well, and I think the idea here would be to think or reflect and say, “Do I have any what you would consider bad habits?” And also reward yourself for any good habits. You can be appreciative and kind to yourself about the things you’re doing well. And if you’ve identified things that maybe aren’t treating you so well, you know, “Shoot, I keep making reactionary moves to the stock market,” or, “Shoot, I keep spending more than I should have last month.” Well, next month is a new month. This year is a new year. You can hit the reset button and avoid dwelling on past bad decisions and focus on making smarter, more effective future decisions is, I think, always the way to go here.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, and I think you said the word, it’s kind of an introspective thing is like, why do I behave that way in the face of uncertainty, for example? Like the market goes down. Well, I got an email the other day, the market was down, and, “Should I go to cash, Steve? The market is down.” How do you answer that question? I don’t know. It could go right back up. And it did, but why do we react that way? What is that about? And that becomes a whole introspection into who you are as a person.
Gabriel Lewit: Indeed, indeed. Well, I think-
Steve Lewit: Someone should write a book about that.
Gabriel Lewit: I think I know which one of us would be the better person to do that, folks. Steve’s book still isn’t out.
Steve Lewit: August 28th. No, August 28th, it’s at the publisher.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, okay.
Steve Lewit: It’s coming.
Gabriel Lewit: Folks. When it gets released, we’ll have to-
Steve Lewit: Cover design, everything.
Gabriel Lewit: … let you know.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, from our perspective here, certainly we might have a lot more we could get into about rebalancing, about portfolio design, diversification, habits, but that’s what we wanted to cover for you today. If you have questions on that, you can call us anytime, (847) 499-3330, or go to sglfinancial.com, or you can email us info@sglfinancial.com if you have any thoughts or follow up questions to that. Now we’re not done yet.
Steve Lewit: It sounded like we were done.
Gabriel Lewit: No, we got more. This is kind of fun.
Steve Lewit: I said, “Why is he ending this?”
Gabriel Lewit: No, I just do a little interlude.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. We don’t do a musical interlude, but we do a little call in. Okay, well now we’ve got for you some controversial hot takes. They might be controversial. That’s what we’re going to decide. So these are little snippets from people that you’ve probably heard of, or most people have possibly heard of. So they’re not just John-and-Jane neighbor. Right? These are maybe mini celebrities or full-on celebrities. And the question is, is it good advice or not? And I’m going to ask Steve, and Steve’s going to give his initial response, and then we are going to talk about a couple of these.
Steve Lewit: We’ll see how I react.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. You ready?
Steve Lewit: What my habitual reaction is here.
Gabriel Lewit: Are you ready?
Steve Lewit: I’m ready.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Have you heard of Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki.
Steve Lewit: Very famous.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, now he says-
Steve Lewit: Read his book.
Gabriel Lewit: … he says, “Now people shouldn’t work for a company and save in the company retirement plan but instead should either launch their own startup or buy gold, silver, or Bitcoin.”
Steve Lewit: Yes, Robert. Robert, what happened to you? Not everybody’s built to be an entrepreneur, and buying gold, Bitcoin, and what was the other one?
Gabriel Lewit: Silver.
Steve Lewit: Silver is not necessarily a financial plan. So Robert-
Gabriel Lewit: So quick take-
Steve Lewit: Thumb down-
Gabriel Lewit: … hot take-
Steve Lewit: … thumb down on Robert.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, Steve, we got a thumb down.
Steve Lewit: What about you?
Gabriel Lewit: I would concur. I think he’s making a very global statement, right? People shouldn’t work for companies and invest in their retirement-
Steve Lewit: Well, any time anyone says, “You should,” as soon as someone says to me, “You should do this,” it’s like, come on.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we just told people they should diversify.
Steve Lewit: You should consider diversifying. You should consider diversifying would be a better way of saying it.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, so we had a thumbs down there. Yeah, I mean, very speculative. Those types of investments, not well-diversified, speaking of that. Companies give you free match amounts. Not everybody’s cut out to be an entrepreneur. I’m with you. I think that’s not great global advice.
Steve Lewit: We have clients that have had fabulous careers and lives working for companies. It’s just a different taste.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. A host of the Women and Money podcast, Suze Orman. Most people have heard of Suze, and some people really like her, and I do think she does occasionally have some very-
Steve Lewit: Occasionally.
Gabriel Lewit: … good wisdom nuggets
Steve Lewit: Occasional-
Gabriel Lewit: She recently suggested retiree set aside three to five years’ worth of living expenses in a just-in-case bank account to protect against stock market crashes.
Steve Lewit: Yes. Thank you, Suze. Well-
Gabriel Lewit: What say you?
Steve Lewit: I say three to five years is … I like the idea of setting aside money just in case.
Gabriel Lewit: In a just-in-case bank account.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Set aside three to five years of earnings in a bank account, earning low interest?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, let’s say, I’m just going to use some math. Let’s say you spend $125,000 a year.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Now you’re putting a half a million dollars-
Gabriel Lewit: To five would be 500 to $700,000-
Steve Lewit: … sitting in a bank account.
Gabriel Lewit: … sitting in a bank account.
Steve Lewit: I don’t know, Suze-
Gabriel Lewit: Yea or nay, Steve?
Steve Lewit: That’s going to be a thumbs down, Susie.
Gabriel Lewit: So, what do you think? What would be your rebuttal to that take?
Steve Lewit: Well, it depends on how quickly you can liquefy other assets.
Gabriel Lewit: And how the other assets are invested
Steve Lewit: Are invested. If you have other assets that are liquid that can earn higher than a bank account but can’t lose money, are equally as safe, I would prefer to have it in there.
Gabriel Lewit: Do you agree with her concept-
Steve Lewit: Definitely.
Gabriel Lewit: … of having money safely tucked away in reserve for three to five years?
Steve Lewit: Having money that can turn liquid as soon as you need it? Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Without being down substantially, I’m assuming-
Steve Lewit: Or at all, yeah. Absolutely.
Gabriel Lewit: So more like a medium concur for you?
Steve Lewit: No, hers is a thumb down. She said three to five years, and that’s-
Gabriel Lewit: In cash.
Steve Lewit: … a thumbs down.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, a thumb … You’re being strong on the position.
Steve Lewit: Oh yeah. No, I don’t mess with Suze. Suze don’t mess with us.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh gosh. Suze doesn’t know about us.
Steve Lewit: Well, but when she says stuff, it’s like gospel.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t think Suze listens to our podcast.
Steve Lewit: No, she doesn’t. But when you listen to her, I mean when she says things, it’s like, “This is the way it is.”
Gabriel Lewit: She’s very, yes, not much room for wiggling there. Okay. Kevin O’Leary, notable from Shark Tank, insists that if you don’t know your net worth at all times, you’re being irresponsible with money. He promotes constant tracking, optimization, and performance measurement at all times of your net worth.
Steve Lewit: Yes, Kevin? All time? What does that mean? All time?
Gabriel Lewit: All times, meaning every day, any day, you can say, “Steve, right now, what’s your net worth to the penny?”
Steve Lewit: Well, I’m going to give you a neutral thumb on that, Kevin. I think you should know your net worth. Whether I need to adjust it daily or hourly is a little, who are those people that focus on detail all the time?
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know.
Steve Lewit: Little-
Gabriel Lewit: Detail nut?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Detailed for me. No. Yeah, you should know your net worth, but-
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think he’s a business guy. And in business, for business owners, there is sort of a mantra, especially the high-growth ones, where you got to know your numbers. Right? When you’re on Shark Tank and they’re grilling you and you don’t know your numbers, they always give you a hard time.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, but he’s saying in your daily life, it would be in your daily life you need to know, “All right, my stocks are up, my bonds are down. This investment is supposed to return 10% this week, it only returned eight.” You need to know your metrics, but I don’t know.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re a neutral.
Steve Lewit: I’m neutral. Yeah. I’m really neutral.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m with you on neutral on that one, yeah.
Steve Lewit: I mean, he’s a brilliant guy, so you got to listen to him.
Gabriel Lewit: We’ve got a Netflix star, Ramit Sethi on How to Get Rich has been renting his home for 20 years.
Steve Lewit: Thumbs down on this already.
Gabriel Lewit: And not because he can’t afford to buy. His stance is that buying a home is a bad investment, and that renting can be a better financial decision than buying if you then invest the difference saved.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Thumbs up. I’m giving him the thumbs up. What’s his name?
Gabriel Lewit: Do you know what the question was?
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Because I’m surprised you said thumbs up.
Steve Lewit: Well, he’s saying, look, if-
Gabriel Lewit: He’s saying you shouldn’t buy a home. You should only rent.
Steve Lewit: You should rent, and the difference that you save between renting and buying a home is invest. And that’s the same theory, which was buy term and invest the difference. Theoretically, it’s great, except there’s one problem. People save money, and they spend it, and they don’t invest it.
Gabriel Lewit: The question is, you gave it a wholehearted thumbs up.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. If you can do it. I think home-owning is not the best way of going.
Gabriel Lewit: So, thumbs up would mean that’s what we’re going to tell our listeners here to do? They should do this?
Steve Lewit: There are no shoulds. Look, if a client came to me two weeks ago and said, “Should I rent or buy?” And I said, “Well, let’s take a look at that.” And rental was a better deal.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, yeah. Cash flow, if you can’t afford to buy, that’s a different story. I guess I would be a little different than you.
Steve Lewit: They could afford to buy.
Gabriel Lewit: I would say most of the time rentals I’m finding these days are really not much more than or less than the home that you’re purchasing, and you leave a lot of money on the table. And combined with the spending challenges, or sorry, the saving challenges that people have, I think I’d probably tilt towards the opposite advice for most people.
Steve Lewit: And I understand that, because the rental market is through the roof. However, if I spend $4,000 or $2,000 on an apartment, let’s say, or a townhome, and I spend $2,000 on my condo, that condo comes with other expenses that I don’t have. And that’s where I think he’s saying, you’re better off just keeping it simple, saving the money, and putting it into the market.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we did hit on a hot button on this one.
Steve Lewit: We sure did.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. We might have time for one, maybe two more. We’ll say Grant Cardone, billionaire real estate investor, argues that using as much leverage as possible is the fastest path to wealth, especially in real estate. He downplays risk, promotes aggressive borrowing, and frames caution as playing small.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: What say you sir Steve about Grant’s advice?
Steve Lewit: Grant, I love your enthusiasm. I love your vision. And the other part of the story that you’re not saying is that the best way to leverage yourself into wealth, is to leverage real estate, is also the best way to get dead broke.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s very risky.
Steve Lewit: It’s extremely risky.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. What Grant is not saying, Grant, if you follow his personality, has one of those guys where he’s kind of like a macho guy, and you shouldn’t worry about risk. Average people do have to worry about risk.
Steve Lewit: Now, I’ll tell you a story, David-
Gabriel Lewit: You can make a lot of money through leverage, but you can also equally lose it just as quickly.
Steve Lewit: I’ll tell you a story that you don’t know.
Gabriel Lewit: What’s that?
Steve Lewit: Your dad, in the late seventies, owned a ton of Section 8 housing, highly leveraged. I mean a ton of it. And when the market collapsed, guess what? Your dad went broke. Lost it all. And that’s the problem with leverage. It’s either very good or it could be very bad. So yeah, you got to have … And he’s saying be bold and take risks and everything. Easier said than done.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay. Last one here.
Steve Lewit: A of thumbs downs. A lot of thumb downs.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So last one is from a guy named Caleb Hammer, who I’m not even sure who he is,
Steve Lewit: Never heard of him.
Gabriel Lewit: But he says most people don’t have a money problem, they have a behavior problem. He says often it’s not the math that’s the problem. Discipline is,
Steve Lewit: Hey, what’s his name?
Gabriel Lewit: Caleb Hammer.
Steve Lewit: Caleb, I love you, man. Oh, Caleb, you’re right on. It’s not about money, it’s about your headset, and your thinking, and the structure you put in. It’s all about behavior. Most people have enough money, they just mess it up.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. So you’re a thumbs up on this one?
Steve Lewit: I’m 10 thumbs up.
Gabriel Lewit: 10 thumbs up. How do you have 10 thumbs?
Steve Lewit: Well, if you saw me paint, or try to build something, I have 10 thumbs.
Gabriel Lewit: Gotcha, gotcha. Oh, okay. I’ll just do one last one for 30 seconds, just because I think it’ll be a quick one. Elon Musk, says that due to advances in AI, energy, and robotics, there will be such an abundance of resources in the future that saving for retirement will be irrelevant. He said, “Don’t worry about squirreling money away for retirement, in 10 or 20 years, it won’t matter.”
Steve Lewit: Yeah. If I was a super billionaire with all the money I needed for my entire lifetimes, including future lifetimes, I would say that too. Folks, save your bucks, save it, and have a wonderful retirement. Because whatever Elon is talking about, he’s living in his own world.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I would say not saving anything, hoping that you’ll be covered by AI and robotics via universal basic income is a little bit of a stretch.
Steve Lewit: Do you remember-
Gabriel Lewit: Wouldn’t call that a good plan.
Steve Lewit: Do you remember, Gabriel, when they did a-
Gabriel Lewit: Whether it happens is who knows, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Steve Lewit: Do you remember when they did a survey of young people planning for retirement, that in the survey there was, I don’t know if it was 20% or 30%, their retirement plan was winning the lottery?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. Not necessarily a great plan there.
Steve Lewit: Not a great plan either.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we hope you enjoyed those hot takes. I thought they were kind of fun, and maybe we’ll do more of those in the future if we find some time to dig up more of them. So we’ll keep track of those.
Steve Lewit: I love thumb-downing people.
Gabriel Lewit: It gives you power.
Steve Lewit: They’re famous and I’m putting my thumb down.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s like on AGT when you hit the buzzer. Well, if you have any questions, we’re here for you. Call us (847) 499-3330. This is the end of the show here today. You can also email us at info@sglfinancial.com. We are here for any financial question and concern or need you may have, just call us or meet with us anytime. All right, well, stay well. We will talk to you on the next show.
Steve Lewit: See you all soon.
Gabriel Lewit: Bye-bye.
Steve Lewit: Bye now.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at (847) 499-3330, or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com. And be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.
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